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105 lines
4.9 KiB
Plaintext
105 lines
4.9 KiB
Plaintext
Monday January 31, 1994
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YOU WANNA KNOW HOW TO HANDLE CRIME? ASK A COP
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By MIKE ROYKO
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THEY'RE ALL over TV and the papers talking about crime: the president of the
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United States, his aides, members of Congress, lawyers, professors. They are
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promising this and that and vowing to do such and such.
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But I've noticed the absence of one group that might be expected to have some
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opinion on crime and what, if anything, can be done to reduce it.
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Cops.
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Oh, once in a while you might get a high-ranking police official, a chief of
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some big city department. But police brass sound like the politicians, since
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they deal with budgets, manpower charts and other administrative matters.
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By cops, I mean the men and women who go out on the street every day and try to
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solve crimes and arrest criminals.
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In all the blather coming out of Washington about crime, and what the
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big-spenders will do about it, the invisible man is the street cop.
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So the morning after President Clinton blew hot air at the nation, I called a
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friend who has been a cop for many years. He's worked on homicides, robberies,
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rapes, just about every form of foul behavior.
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Because he aspires to higher rank, and clout still means something in the
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Chicago Police Department, it wouldn't help his career to be known as my
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friend. So his name can't be used.
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But he's real. And when I asked him what his reaction was to the current
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anti-crime frenzy in the White House and Congress, he said: ''It's a lot of
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bull----.''
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He elaborated. ''There's nothing we haven't heard before. Three strikes and
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you're out. We already send up three-time losers in Illinois. Hasn't done
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anything to the crime rate. Build more prisons. We can't build enough prisons
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to hold all the bad guys. Tougher gun laws. Look, the only people the gun laws
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affect are honest people. Frankly, I wish every decent family in America had a
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gun and knew how to use it.
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''Besides, federal crime laws don't mean a damn thing to me because about 95
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percent of the crimes in this country are local, not federal. The feds aren't
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dealing with shootings in saloons or guys going nuts and killing their wives
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and kids or the neighbors. Most of their busts are white-collar. So federal
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laws don't mean squat when it comes to everyday crime.
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''Now, I'm in a minority, but a lot of cops agree with me on this. And that's
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the drug laws. We're wasting our time trying to control that crap. We're
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wasting billions of dollars and throwing people in jail who are just
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self-destructive goofs.
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''We'd be better off doing what we do with liquor and cigarettes. Tax them and
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license the sale. Sure, people abuse booze and they smoke. But smoking is way
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down because most people know it's bad for them. The same thing with booze.
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More white wine and light beer and fewer boilermakers.
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''It's the same thing with drugs. Right now, most people don't use drugs. If
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you legalize it, most people still won't use drugs.
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''But you take away the illegal profit motive, there go the drug peddlers, the
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gangs and the other serious crime. And most of the police and political
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corruption.
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''Then you wouldn't have thousands of cops wasting their time trying to bust
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some small-time dealer. You wouldn't have them clogging up the courts and
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filling up cells that somebody dangerous should be in.
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''But you don't hear the politicians say that because they're afraid of the
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people who say: 'I don't want my kids buying drugs.' Hey, lady, if your kid
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wants to buy drugs right now, he can do it. And maybe he already is.
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''Look back 20 years. Anybody who said we ought to legalize gambling in
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Illinois was treated like a nut. The Mafia will take it over. Where there's a
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casino there will be murder and prostitution, and families are going to fall
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apart because the old man is blowing his paycheck at the blackjack table.
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''Now we got gambling boats all over Illinois. We're going to have them in
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Chicago and the suburbs. And it's no big deal. The sky isn't falling.
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''Same thing with drugs. What, somebody is going to smoke some marijuana at
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home, listen to music, then go out and shoot everybody he sees? No, he's going
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to fall asleep and get up the next morning with less of a hangover than if he
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drank three boilermakers.
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''Now, if you legalize the stuff, and tax it, you save billions of dollars that
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we're wasting now, and you bring in a lot of extra money from the taxes.
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''Then you take that money and use some of it for rehabbing the junkies.
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''But you also find ways to invest it in places like the West Side, in public
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works projects or to help start private businesses that will create jobs.
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Because that's where it all started, the craziness and the higher crime rate.
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When the low-skill jobs disappeared, the husbands were out of work and they
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disappeared. And that's why we have all these one-parent or no-parent families
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that turn out the street criminals.
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''Hey, but what do I know? I only go out there and arrest them, fill out the
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paperwork and go to court.
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''It's not like I'm some expert in Washington and get on C-Span.''
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